Repairs to tiny cracks in the wings of Airbus’s flagship A380 superjumbos will take eight weeks for each aircraft, but the manufacturer has said there is no need to ground the planes for the entire time.
Airbus said the repairs were not urgent and did not need to be carried out in one go. It said it expected most airlines to do the repairs step by step, as part of routine maintenance checks carried out every two, four and six years of flight.
There were calls for the A380 to be grounded earlier this year after hairline cracks were found on some of the 4,000 brackets used to link the wing to the fuselage on Qantas A380s.
However, Airbus insisted the problem posed no safety threat. It is spending more than £200m carrying out the repairs, but says it won’t compensate airlines for revenue lost during the work.
The plane manufacturer will begin building A380 wings with a new type of aluminium from next year so that aircraft delivered from 2014 onwards won’t have the defect.
British Airways has ordered 12 A380s, the first of which will be delivered next year.
